If General Hospital were to reintroduce Elizabeth’s father — and Monica’s long-ago husband — it wouldn’t necessarily need to recast the role. The soap could just bring back the doctor’s original portrayer, who went on to find fame and fortune on MacGyver and Stargate SG-1.
Though Elizabeth has never had a close relationship with her father, the warmth that’s effortlessly radiated by this alum of Knots Landing (as Gary Ewing) and The Young and the Restless (as twins William and Jeffrey Bardwell) would make the character hard not to forgive. Eventually, that is.
Port Charles is already awash in All My Children alumni, so what’s one more — especially when that one more played fan favorite Jackson Montgomery, aka the father of Greenlee Smythe, aka Rebecca Budig, aka Jeff’s surprise third daughter, Hayden? Casting doesn’t get much more perfect.
An added bonus of casting the Days of Our Lives MVP (who played both Roman Brady and Alex North) would be the possibility of Jeff striking up a new relationship with Lucy Coe — whose portrayer is, of course, the actor’s real-life wife of more than 40 years, Lynn Herring.
We know: He already appeared on General Hospital as Paul Hornsby in the ’90s. But since a) that was ages ago, b) Richard Burgi last played that part, and c) we don’t imagine serial killer Paul being sprung anytime soon, we could see Satterfield pulling a Michael Easton and tackling a new role.
The primetime mainstay, best known for Murphy Brown, hasn’t done daytime since the ’80s, when he started his career playing ex-hustler Sandy Cory on Another World. But he has both the charm and the chops to reenter the fray, perhaps even establishing Jeff as a latter-day Steve Hardy.
He may not have done daytime, but the veteran of Knots Landing, Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives nonetheless has suds in his veins. On top of that, the handsome primetime soap alum looks like he actually could be the father of Elizabeth and her sisters.
Much-missed in soapdom since his brief last daytime role (One Life to Live’s Lee Ramsey), the veteran of Guiding Light (as Ben Warren) and As the World Turns (as Craig Montgomery, pictured) is chameleon enough to convince us both that Jeff loves Liz and Sarah — and left them in the dust.
He may be a little on the young side to play Elizabeth’s father, but the former Another World star — beloved for his stint as Ryan Harrison — does possess the kind of natural appeal that makes it easy to imagine why the doctor was once the object of Heather Webber’s obsession.
If The Bold and the Beautiful isn’t going to reinstate Thorne Forrester’s former portrayer — and it doesn’t appear that it is — General Hospital could snap up the All My Children vet (who was Del Henry) to play Jeff and rehang his long-missing branch from the Webbers’ Port Charles family tree.
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